Voter Fraud Retrial For Democratic Elections Commissioner Set For November

Ed McDonough, the Democrat Elections Commissioner in Rensselaer County embroiled in a voter fraud scheme which has seen others of his party either serve time or accept plea deals for their actions, will go back on trial in November, with jury selection beginning on the 13th of that month.

In November, Rensselaer County Democratic Elections Commissioner Edward McDonough will stand trial for the second time this year on charges he allegedly forged absentee ballots to help Democrats secure the 2009 Working Families Party primary…

… McDonough, who faces 38 felony counts of second-degree forgery and 36 felony counts of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, was first tried alongside former City Councilman Michael LoPorto earlier this year. That highly publicized trial took nine weeks, beginning Jan. 17 and ending in a mistrial with a hung jury March 13.

This trial, and the ensuing ones should provide a plethora of exciting details. The first combined trial with LoPorto (who has since been acquitted) and McDonough saw accusations of voters being paid for their signatures, accusations of immigrants being targeted, stories of mentally disabled men being used for their ballots, and Democrat councilmen joking about their past felony convictions.

Such is the state of politics in upstate New York.

McDonough’s trial will then likely be followed by the trials of two other Democrats allegedly involved in the scheme.

Former City Council President Clement Campana awaits trial on charges of first-degree falsifying business records and four counts of illegal voting, all felonies, and a count of conspiracy to promote or prevent election, a misdemeanor.

City Councilman Gary Galuski still faces four felony counts of first-degree falsifying business records.

Our original prediction was that the first trial for LoPorto would end up in his acquittal, based on varying witness accounts and a convenient changing of testimony by Working Families Party operative Sara Couch. McDonough does not have such luxuries, and may well face some level of conviction.

About the AuthorRusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss is a freelance journalist focusing on the conservative movement and its political agenda. He has been writing conservatively charged articles for several years in the upstate New York area, and his writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, American Thinker, FoxNews.com, Big Government, the Times Union, and the Troy Record. He is also Editor of one of the top conservative blogs of 2012, the Mental Recession.